ABSTRACT
Much of the early research involving what became known as the GottschalkGleser Content Analysis scales aimed at minimizing the effects of the personality of the interviewer by using a method of evoking speech by asking subjects to talk for 5 min, in response to purposely ambiguous instructions, about any interesting or dramatic personal life experiences. This method of eliciting speech was used in order to maximize the projective-test aspects of the human communication relationship so that the speaker would be more likely to present details of his internal psychological state rather than to react to cues from the interviewer. What was subsequently discovered was that even with standardized and con trolled instructions being used to elicit speech samples, subtle interviewer effects occurred on the content of the speaker’s verbal samples. Because such inter viewer effects could possibly become a focus of interest, they are described.
